LD 3896 
1895 
Copy 1 







©ct@bei» 19, 
1S95. 



QPENTNQ-D aY 



fl»Df|ESSES. 



NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, 

NEW YORK CITY. 




©ct©b@p 19, 
1 



Opentnq-D 



Addresses. 



NEW YORK UNIVERSITY' 



NEW YORK CITY. 



LDsm 

fjr 



I. lt]trodiiQtovy StatQtqQtjt 



In the early part of October, 1895, an invitation was 
addressed to several thousands of the citizens of New York 
and vicinity, including Professors and Instructors in Col- 
leges and Schools, Officers and Trustees of Libraries, 
Museums and similar Foundations, and others who were 
thought to be specially interested in higher education; 
also to the Presidents of all the Universities and Colleges 
in the United States, to the President of the United 
States, and to the Governor and other chief officers of the 
State of New York, including the University Regents, 
after the form given upon the following page. 

The card upon which this invitation was engraved 
contained carefully prepared representations of the prin- 
cipal buildings at University Heights. At the upper left 
hand corner was the Hall of Languages ; at the upper 
right hand corner was the Havemeyer Laboratory of 
Chemistry ; in the centre of the card was placed the front 
elevation of the new Library Building. 

The date for the ceremonies named upon the card, 
as will be observed by those familiar with the history of 
the New York University, was in the same week with the 
Sixty-fifth Anniversary of the Election of Members of the 
First Council, October 15, 1830, by the subscribers to the 
" Fund for the Establishment of a University in the City 
of New York on a Liberal and Extensive Scale," and 
within one day of the Sixty-fifth Anniversary of the 
Assembling of the " Literary and Scientific Convention " 
in this city, October 20, 1830, composed of gentlemen 
who, in the words of Chancellor Upson, " were really the 
creators of the University." The incorporation of the 
University was one-half year later, April 19, 1831. 



4 










^ 
S 



^H 







1 > J J| i 




V^' 




r* n ^ i * 
Illy 




! 



s 



1 










V 






IS 



* 




t^ * 



^ 



1& i^ 




I .1 






M 



si 



1 







Accompanying the above was a card of invitation to 
the New University Building erected within the preceding 
year upon the time-honored site at Washington Square : 







Also the following card was sent to the members of 
the Council, to the members of the several Faculties, and to 
those^Guests who were invited to seats upon the platform : 



In response to this invitation a company numbering 
several thousands gathered upon the University College 



6 

Campus at University Heights on Saturday, October 19th, 
under a clear, warm sky. The guests devoted the early 
afternoon to a view of the grounds. 

The " Daily Tribune " said : 

" University Heights, in the glory of autumn loveli- 
ness, appeared to the thousands who walked over the 
grounds yesterday as one of the most charming and beau- 
tiful places within the city limits. The magnificence of 
the view from the campus, looking over Washington 
Heights and the Hudson River to the Palisades, called 
forth almost countless exclamations of delight. The crowds, 
arriving by special trains soon after noon, were composed 
in good part of persons who were not familiar with the 
scene, and to them the splendor of the landscape was a 
revelation." 

Many of the visitors found time to inspect the Hall of 
Languages, the Havemeyer Laboratory of Chemistry, the 
Charles Butler Hall and the Gymnasium, which were all 
to be formally opened. The three temporary buildings, 
namely, the Laboratory of Physics and Engineering, the 
Laboratory of Biology and Geology, and the Association 
Hall and Reading-Room, were also visited by many. The 
Band of the Twelfth Regiment played spirited music 
while the procession was in process of forming near the 
Founders' Memorial. 

The following was the order of procession : 

Twelfth Regiment Band. 

The President of the Council and the Chancellor of the University. 

The Vice-President of the Council and the Ex-Chancellor. 

The Secretary and the Treasurer of the Council. 

The Other Members of the Council. 

The Speakers of the day. 



The Faculty of Arts and Science. 

The Faculty of Law. 

The Faculty of Medicine. 

The Faculty of Union Theological Seminary. 

Presidents and Professors of Sister Universities and Colleges. 

Members of the State and City Governments. 

Principals of Academies and Preparatory Schools. 

Invited Guests : including Clergy of the city and vicinity, 

Graduates of Sister Universities and Colleges, 

Officers and Trustees of Libraries, Schools, 

and similar Foundations. 

The Ohio Society. 

The Alumni of Arts and Science, of Law, and of Medicine, 
in the order of their classes. 

The Students of the University School of Law. 

The Students of the University School of Medicine. 

The Students of the University School of Pedagogy. 

The Students of the University Graduate School. 

The Students of the University College and the University School of 

Engineering. 

The procession formed in reverse order upon " The 
Founders' Road," and countermarched to the place of the 
exercises, upon the west slope of the Ohio Field. 

Several hundred chairs upon the platform accommo- 
dated the greater part of the invited guests who took part 
in the procession, and also the members of the Woman's 
Advisory Committee of the University. Three connected 
tents proved too narrow for the assembled audience. 

Decorations of a simple but effective character marked 
the tent and platform. The site of the Library Building 
was outlined by two or three scores of flag-staffs bearing 
flags of all nations, while at the east front a triple arch was 
raised covered with American flags. 

The programme of the day as given in the appendix 



of this pamphlet was followed, excepting that the Governor 
of the State participated in the exercises of the day only 
by an inspection of the Halls of Law and Pedagogy in the 
new building at Washington Square. Also the Commis- 
sioner of Education of the United States, Dr. William T. 
Harris, was prevented at the last moment, by official duties, 
from leaving Washington City. His letter of regret is 
given below. The venerable Dr. Talbot W. Chambers be- 
ing detained by illness, the benediction was pronounced 
by the Rev. Dr. George Alexander. 

A most happy circumstance of the day was the pres- 
idency over the entire exercises of Mr. Charles Butler, 
LL. D., who had taken part in the dedication of the first 
University Building at Washington Square in 1835, and 
became a member of the Council in 1836, recording thus 
nearly sixty years of service for the University. He was 
president of the Council from 1849 to 1857, when he re- 
signed to go abroad, and again became president in 1886, 
serving continuously since that time in this office. 



9 



IL CoilirQtiilatioifS of 

Sister UrjiVgrsities ar|d Colleges- 



From among the many letters sent by the heads of 
Universities and Colleges a number were read, being those 
that were more than formal notes of acceptance or regret. 
The letters which were read are here given. 

The following letter (a holograph) was received from 
the President of the United States : 

Gray Gables, Buzzard's Bay, Mass. 

Sept. 17, 1895. 

Chancellor Henrv Mitchell MacCracken, 

New York City. 
My Dear Sir : 

I am sorry that I must ask you to allow me to decline 
the invitation with which you honored me a long time ago, 
to attend the opening of the new buildings of the Univer- 
sity of the City of New York. 

When I return to Washington in October I shall find 
much important public duty claiming my time and atten- 
tion, and if I keep my engagement to attend the Atlanta 
Exposition on the 23d of October, that is, I fear, all I 
ought to do in that line. 

Yours very truly, 

GROVER CLEVELAND. 



IO — — 

President's Room, Columbia College. 

New York, Oct. 14, 1895. 

My Dear Chancellor MacCracken : 

I have sent a formal acceptance of the invitation for 
Saturday next to Dr. Butler, but I cannot let this opportu- 
nity pass without congratulating you personally on the 
very handsome progress you have made with the work 
which you have in hand. I am looking forward with much 
interest to seeing your new site and the buildings upon it. 
Hoping that everything will pass off according to your 
wish, on Saturday, I am, 

Yours sincerely, 

SETH LOW. 

(President Low honored the opening by his presence.) 

President's Office, University of Michigan. 

Ann Arbor, Sept. 30, 1895. 
My Dear Chancellor MacCracken : 

I have delayed reply to your kind invitation, to see if 
I could not arrange to accept it. Of course you appreciate 
the difficulty of getting away in the opening days of the 
year. But I think I should have tried to come to you 
had it not happened that a meeting of our Board of Re- 
gents has been called for a date so near to the 19th that 
I find it impracticable to get away. 

I am very sorry, for I am much interested in your new 
enterprise, and the facts that you mention, of Dr. Tappan's 
connection with your University and of your drawing so 
generously on our young men, add to the interest I should 
otherwise have. 

But I regret to say that I shall have to ask you to 

excuse me. 

Yours very truly, 

JOHN R. ANGELL. 



1 1 

University of Pennsylvania, Office of The Provost. 

Philadelphia. 

Mr. Charles C. Harrison regrets that a previous engage- 
ment obliges him to decline the invitation of the Council 
of the University of the City of New York for Saturday 
afternoon, October 19. 

The University of Pennsylvania sends its congratula- 
tions to the University of the City of New York upon this 
occasion, so interesting in its history. 

President's Rooms, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 

October 16, 1895. 
My Dear Dr. MacCracken : 

I have just received your kind invitation to be present 
at the opening of the buildings at University Heights, and 
regret that I shall not be able to accept it. Permit me, 
however, to congratulate the University of the City of New 
York on this auspicious event, and to express the hope that 
the growth which has recently been made may be contin- 
ued and consolidated in the future, as I feel confident it 
will be under vour wise administration. 
Very truly yours, 

J. G. SCHURMAN. 

Yale University. 

New Haven, October 19, 1895. 

My Dear Chancellor MacCracken : 

I trust that your opening ceremonies to-day will be 

exceedingly pleasant, and beg you to accept my thanks for 

your invitation, and my expression of regret that I am 

prevented from being present on the occasion which is of 

so much interest. Assuring you of my very high regard, 

I am, 

Truly yours, 

TIMOTHY DWIGHT. 



12 

University of Chicago, President's Office. 

Chicago, October, 1895. 

Chancellor Henry M. MacCracken, 

University of the City of New York, N. Y. 

My Dear Sir : 

I regret very much indeed to be absent from the formal 
opening of the buildings of the University of the City of 
New York, but engagements of a character which I cannot 
break absolutely prevent my acceptance. I wish you 
every success and thank you for the courtesy you have 
shown me. 

I remain, 

Yours very truly, 

WILLIAM R. HARPER. 

University of Wooster. 

Wooster, Ohio, October 17, 1895. 

Chancellor Henry M. MacCracken, 

University of the City of New York, 

New York, N. Y. 
Dear Sir and Brother : 

I beg to present congratulations, with regrets, for the 
occasion of the 19th. 

May all the hopes enkindled by the new location and 
the improved facilities be fully realized : 

" And, cast in some diviner mold, 
May the new cycle shame the old." 

Recognizing how fully your patient, wise and constant 

effort has contributed to and deserved the joy of this great 

day, I am, 

Yours sincerely, 

SYLVESTER F. SCOVEL. 



i 3 

Syracuse University. 

Syracuse, N. Y., October 18, 1895. 
Chancellor Henry MacCracken, 

University Heights, N. Y. 
My Dear Chancellor : 

I wish to acknowledge your very kind invitation to 
the opening of the buildings at University Heights, and to 
assure you of my regret that I shall be denied the privilege 
which you offer me. I have watched the progress of the 
great University on its new site with much interest. I 
both hope and predict for it a remarkable future. 
Very truly yours, 

JAMES R. DAY, Chancellor. 

Purdue University, Lafayette, Ind., President's Room. 

October 17, 1895. 
Charles Butler, Esq., 

President of Council, 

University of the City of New York. 
Sir: 

I beg to acknowledge the receipt of an invitation to 
attend the formal opening of the buildings of the Univers- 
ity of the City of New York on October 19, 1895. Please 
accept my thanks for this invitation, which I would gladly 
accept were it not for a pressure of work incident to the 
opening of our college year. I rejoice with you in the 
addition of new things and good things to the University. 

Yours very truly, 

J. H. SMART, President. 

The Catholic University of America, Washington, D. C. 

Bishop Keane returns thanks to the Council of the 
University of the City of New York for their courteous 
invitation to the solemnities of to-morrow, and regrets 
that it will not be in his power to be present on so interest- 
ing an occasion. 



14 

President's Office, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pa. 

October 17, 1895. 
Dear Dr. MacCracken : 

I am so very sorry that an important business engage- 
ment on Saturday prevents my being present at the open- 
ing of your new buildings and at the reception you give 
afterwards. 

Later in the year I hope that you will give me permis- 
sion to visit your buildings, which I am most anxious to see. 
Will you present my sincere regrets to your Committee of 
Arrangements ? 

Believe me, with kind regards, 

Sincerely yours, 

M. CAREY THOMAS. 



Manhattan College, On-the-Hudson. 

New York, October 16, 1895. 
Henry M. MacCracken, D. D., 

Chancellor, University of the City of New York. 
Dear Sir : 

I acknowledge with thanks the receipt of an invitation 
to inspect the University Building in Waverley Place, and 
of an invitation to attend the ceremonies of the breaking of 
ground for two buildings at University Heights. 

I shall be glad to attend the afternoon exercises, if my 
duties will permit. If not, one of our good Brothers will 
represent me at the grounds. 

Let me take this occasion to extend to you as head of 
the University my best wishes. And may the ceremonies 
of Saturday usher in a new period of increased activity and 
even nobler efforts in the cause of education. 
Very sincerely yours, 

Brother CHRYSOSTOM. 



15 

St. Stephen's College, Annandale, N. Y. 

October 21, 1895. 
My Dear Mr. Chancellor : 

I am obliged to you for the honor of an invitation to 
the opening of your University. I am sorry that it was 
not in my power to participate in the festivities of the occa- 
sion, but I was absent from home. 

Allow me to offer you my congratulations, and to 
express the hope that the University of the City of New 
York may have a new start in life. 

Believe me to be, 

Very truly yours, 

R. B. FAIRBAIRN. 

The Rev. H. M. MacCracken, D. D., LL. D. 



Drew Theological Seminary, Madison, N. J. 

October 17, 1895. 
Rev. Henry M. MacCracken, LL. D., Chancellor. 
My Dear Sir : 

Allow me to thank you most cordially for your kind 
invitation to the formal opening of your buildings at Uni- 
versity Heights. Mrs. Buttz and myself greatly desire to 
be present, but engagements beyond our control prevent 
our doing so. 

Accept heartiest congratulations on the fine success of 
the University of the City of New York under your admin- 
istration. The future of the University is assured and is 
full of promise. 

Very truly yours, 

HENRY A. BUTTZ. 



i6 



Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass. 

October 17, 1895. 
Henry M. MacCracken, LL. D., D. D., 

Chancellor University of the City of New York. 
Dear Sir : 

I have received the polite invitation of the Committee 
for the opening of the new buildings at University Heights, 
October 19, and regret that I cannot be present. 

The occasion promises to be one of great importance in 
the development of the University, and all the friends of 
liberal learning will rejoice in the prosperity of which these 
new buildings and grounds are one indication. 

With great respect, 

Your obedient servant, 

CECIL F. P. BANCROFT, Principal. 

The following telegrams were received : 

Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 

October, 1895. 
Chancellor MacCracken, University Heights : 

I regret that it is impossible for me to accept your 
invitation for the nineteenth. 

CHARLES W. ELIOT. 



Princeton University, New Jersey. 

October 19, 1895. 
Chancellor MacCracken : 

Away from home when your invitation came. Just 
returned. Very sorry cannot attend exercises to-day. 
Hearty congratulations. 

FRANCIS L. PATTON. 



17 



IIL Addresses 



I. Prayer by Dr. John Hall. 

The Rev. Dr. John Hall opened the exercises with 
prayer, saying : " We desire to thank thee, Almighty God, 
for the usefulness which thou hast given to this institution 
in connection with which we are gathered here together. 
Give that wisdom, we pray thee, which cometh from above 
to the work and management of this University. May 
those in authority have comfort, and peace, and encourag- 
ing success in the work thou hast committed to them. 
Bless the students who are under tuition ; give them fidel- 
ity, diligence and earnestness, and prepare them for con- 
spicuous usefulness in the years to come. Let thy blessing 
rest upon those by whose generosity this institution has 
been enlarged and increased. Watch over its interests in 
all times to come, and make it the centre of encouraging 
and stimulating influence upon the multitudes of this city. 
Amen." 

II. Presentation of Keys by Mr. David Banks. 

Mr. David Banks, the Chairman of the Building Com- 
mittee, then formally presented to the President, on behalf 
of the Corporation, the keys of the new buildings. In 
doing so he said : 

" Mr. President : 

" I congratulate you on being able to be present and to 
preside at these opening ceremonies upon University 
Heights. 

" As Chairman of the Building Committee I have the 



18 

honor to present you the keys of the Charles Butler Hall, 
the Hall of Languages, and the Gymnasium, knowing that 
they are placed in good hands, and that you will take the 
same interest in the University in the future as you have 
done in the past. 

" I regret that Mr. Havemeyer is not here to present 
the keys of the Havemeyer Hall of Chemistry, which he 
has builded for the University, and at his request I now 
present you the keys of the Hall of Chemistry." 

Mr. Charles Butler, in accepting the keys, said : 
" I thank you, as Chairman of the Building Committee, 
and others who have participated with you in the work, 
for the splendid results you have accomplished, and for the 
ability and energy you have continuously displayed." 



III. Address of Charles Butler, LL. D., President of 
the University Council. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends of the University, and 
Citizens of New York : 

The event which we celebrate to-day, and which has 
brought this large assemblage together, is one of the deep- 
est interest. It devolves upon me to express the feelings 
and views of the Council. It is natural that our thoughts 
should revert to the origin and early history of the Univer- 
sity of the City of New York. As the only survivor of that 
period connected with it, I will very briefly state that the 
first movement toward its foundation occurred in 1830, by 
an association of private citizens of New York — gentlemen 
of high standing — who represented various business inter- 
ests of the city, as well as men of different professional 
and religious afhliations or connections. 

Among those conspicuous at that date I will speak 
only of Albert Gallatin, who had filled the office of Treas- 



19 

urer of the United States under President Jefferson, a man 
distinguished both as statesman and scholar. It was he 
who drew up the constitution of the University, which was 
incorporated in 1831. 

The population of the city of New York at that time 
was about 217,000. To-day it is about 2,000,000 in the city 
proper, and if the plan of the so-called " Greater New 
York " be consummated it should be estimated at about 
3,400,000, or by the end of this century at not less than 
4,000,000. 

Albert Gallatin became the first president and Morgan 
Lewis, Governor of this State, the first vice-president of 
this university, and the Rev. James M. Matthews, whose 
memory should ever be cherished with profound reverence, 
the first chancellor. 

The Council of thirty-two members, to which I was 
elected in 1836, was still composed largely of its original 
members and founders, with whom I became personally 
associated on the occasion of their first meeting in the 
council-room of the new building in Washington Square. 

As my thoughts turn from those early days to this 
new epoch in the University's history, I feel profoundly 
grateful that my life has been spared to see the work 
begun with so much faith and courage, sometimes, in peri- 
ods of adversity, sustained chiefly by the devotion of the 
self-sacrificing faculty, now so firmly established as to stand 
an enduring monument to those who laid its foundations 
and to those who have built upon them. 

To you, citizens of New York, who wish to contribute 
to all that helps her true greatness, and more especially to 
you, alumni, who have reason to feel proud of your alma 
mater, to-day to you I appeal most earnestly to rouse your- 
selves as you never have before, and see to it, by your inter- 
est and contributions, that the great stream of usefulness 
which comes from these walls shall flow with an ever- 
broadening and increasing current. 



20 

For the Council, I must express the warmest apprecia- 
tion on their part of the invaluable services of our Chancel- 
lor in contributing by his untiring energy to the success 
which crowns this day, and also to the members of the 
faculties for their cooperation, which has sustained him. 

In conclusion, I congratulate the Chancellor, the facul- 
ties, the Council, the alumni and friends of the university r 
and the citizens of New York, on this auspicious occasion. 



IV. Address by Chancellor Anson Judd Upson, 

D. D., LL. D., L. H. D., on behalf of the Regents 

of the University of the State of New York. 

Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen : 

Personally I have no right to address this distinguished 
assembly. Only my official position could justify the cour- 
teous invitation of your committee, permitting me to appear 
before you as a representative of the Regents of the Uni- 
versity. 

The venerable institution which celebrates here to-day 
a significant event in its history is a member of the so- 
called University of this State which the Regents super- 
vise. Our New York State University is made by law to 
include all higher institutions of education in this State, of 
every name and kind. Over the primary schools, the 
common schools so-called, so numerous and important, the 
Superintendent of Public Instruction presides. But no 
institution of higher education in the State of New York 
can have a legal corporate existence without becoming a 
member of the State University, entitled to the many priv- 
ileges granted alike to all its five hundred and twenty-two 
teaching institutions. 

Your corporation was created by the Legislature of 
New York in 1831, and was thus made a member of the 



21 

State University, and subject to the visitation of the Re- 
gents, being the fifth literary college so recognized — 
Columbia, Union, Hamilton and Hobart being your four 
predecessors. 

If I am not mistaken, the Regents have been called 
only twice to take part officially and helpfully in deciding 
any important question in your affairs. The financial dis- 
asters of 1837 caused pecuniary embarrassment in the con- 
duct of your institution. Complaints were made to the 
Legislature, which wisely referred the examination of your 
affairs to the Regents. But the most and the worst which 
they could report was that you had made a great mistake 
in trying to accomplish too much with too little ! The 
severest charge they could bring against you was that "no 
doubt your embarrassments had arisen from the continued 
negligence of the Council in not appointing a qualified 
bookkeeper"! But the report closed with the satisfactory 
statement that "these embarrassments are not chargeable 
upon any individual member of the Council or other officer 
of the University." Again, in 1883, the Regents, at your 
request, amended your charter in five important particu- 
lars. 

But, if we have done but little for you, you have done 
much for us. The annual reports which you have trans- 
mitted to our board have been full, suggestive and useful. 
In the University convocation held in the capitol at Albany, 
where annually for thirty-three years the teachers of this 
State, with representatives from other States and foreign 
countries and the friends of education, have assembled in 
largely increasing numbers, your Chancellors and Profes- 
sors have contributed very greatly to the interest and profit 
of the occasion by instructive and sometimes elaborate 
papers, by taking part frequently in our discussions, and 
by delivering influential addresses. We have welcomed 
recently to membership in our board the distinguished 
Professor of Surgery in your University Medical College. 



22 

Mr. President, a member of your University Council 
has well described this celebration as commemorating " a 
significant event " in your history. The event here com- 
memorated is truly significant : important, full of meaning. 
This celebration in its significance is both historical and 
prophetic. You have selected a most appropriate date, 
significantly reminding us of the 20th of October, 1830, 
sixty-five years ago, when the convention of gentlemen 
assembled who were really the creators of the Univer- 
sity. 

You will pardon me when I say that during all these 
sixty-five years of your history you have been too modest. 
You have not permitted the public to know enough of 
what you were doing. Certainly you cannot be charged 
with calling public attention too often and too persistently 
to your good work. For sixty years, passers-by have gazed 
at the old gray stone structure on Washington Square. 
They have heard it called " the University Building," 
but that name meant nothing to most of them. Most per- 
sons not engaged in scholastic pursuits would have been 
surprised to learn that a college lived within its turretted 
walls. Many may have known that here was the centre of 
a real University, with its departments of art and science 
and law in the University building and of medicine in 
another part of the city ; but the general public has not 
been impressed as it should have been with the important 
fact that your venerable building was the centre of a great 
school, employing from time to time more than one hun- 
dred teachers, and graduating from its three departments 
annually nearly one thousand students. I ask no pardon 
for repeating the criticism — permit me thus to combine 
praise with censure : if in private you have counted your 
treasures you have not displayed to the great public your 
jewels as you might have done, and as for the encourage- 
ment of your graduates and yourselves and the educational 
public you had a right to do. On this state occasion it is 



23 

eminently appropriate that your crown jewels should be 
displayed. 

On this high day in your history we would not be in- 
vidious, yet let us pay deserved honor to such names among 
your beneficent founders as Albert Gallatin, George Gris- 
wold, John Cleve Green, Julius Hallgarten, Augustus 
Schell, Loring Andrews, and John Taylor Johnston. And 
let us not confine our remembrances to the dead ; but be- 
cause he is yet with us let us pay all the more honor to 
that clartun et venerabile nomen, Charles Butler ; series in ccelum 
redeas. 

What an illustrious list of Chancellors your history re- 
cords, every one of whom I have seen, or both seen and 
heard : James McFarlane Matthews, preeminently your 
founder, a teacher and preacher for fifty years, laborious, 
indefatigable, self-sacrificing ; Theodore Frelinghuysen, the 
patriotic and benevolent citizen, " the Christian statesman ;" 
Isaac Ferris, the wise and courtly and scholarly gentleman ; 
Howard Crosby, emphatically your own alumnus, professor 
and chancellor, as brilliant in scholarship as he was devoted 
in religion — all these, not to mention the names of the liv- 
ing chancellors, will be remembered deservedly with hon- 
or as long as your history lives. And they should be hon- 
ored here and now. 

And so also should be remembered here your faithful 
teachers, many of whom have given the best years of their 
lives to this University. Sometimes, on occasions like this, 
founders and benefactors overshadow teachers. Without 
them both our colleges could not live. The earliest years — 
and may I not say the best fourteen years ? — of the life of 
George Bush, the Old Testament commentator, the noted 
oriental scholar, were given to your service. Few institu- 
tions have had a more laborious drill-master in mathe- 
matics for thirty-nine years than Richard Harrison Bull. 
Caleb S. Henry, the American historian of philosophy, 
served you for fourteen years. I well remember the pro- 



24 

fessor who taught your classes for the longest time, teach- 
ing Latin here for fifty-three years, Ebenezer A. Johnson ; 
industrious, accurate, a most useful instructor in a funda- 
mental subject of study. The illustrious inventor of the 
electric telegraph is known the world over as Professor 
Morse, bearing thus a title which he might not have borne 
had he not received it from your institution as one of your 
teachers for forty years. You had in your faculty one who 
has been called by a competent authority the most noted 
Hebraist of modern times, Isaac Nordheimer, who shortened 
his life by trying to transplant German habits of study into 
this intense American atmosphere. Henry Philip Tappan, 
one of your professors for six years, was one of our most 
useful educational organizers, and as a metaphysician had 
such acknowledged philosophical ability that he could un- 
dertake without disgracing himself to controvert the meta- 
physical doctrines of Jonathan Edwards ! John Torrey, 
your eminent botanist, was a teacher of Asa Gray ; and 
in the judgment of many he was Asa Gray's equal, if not 
his superior, as an industrious and acute observer and a 
discriminating botanical classifier. 

And permit me also to say that, in my judgment, this 
country has never produced four more remarkable teachers 
than your four professors : John William Draper, Tayler 
Lewis, Elias Loomis, and Benjamin Nicholas Martin. Dra- 
per was a thorough instructor, an original inventor, a vol- 
uminous writer, as pure in his style of writing as he was rich 
in his scientific knowledge. Tayler Lewis was our American 
Christian Plato. Elias Loomis, the physicist, was industri- 
ous, exact, exhaustive, a vigilant observer, a writer of text- 
books accepted on both sides of the sea. Benjamin Nicholas 
Martin was one of your professors for thirty-one years. His 
learning was so varied and profound, his thinking was so 
high, that he could make Tayler Lewis his most congenial 
friend. Among American philosophers, the friendship of 
Lewis and Martin was like that of Socrates and Plato. Pro- 



25 

fessor Martin seldom spoke in public or wrote for the press 
when he did not make some profound thought as clear as 
light and as fascinating as the creations of a vivid fancy. I 
would honor the institution to which my dear friend gave 
the best years of his life. 

If the University had enrolled among its professors 
only these four — Draper, Lewis, Loomis and Martin — it 
would have wherewith to glory most abundantly. But 
when you add to these the illustrious names which in the 
past have honored the catalogue of your medical college 
and of your law school : such as that bold and original 
surgeon, the most intrepid operator of his age, Valentine 
Mott ; and such another as the leading founder, perhaps — 
and certainly the most energetic supporter — of your medical 
college, Martyn Paine ; and such a one also as Gunning S. 
Bedford, in his special department of medicine most skilful 
and beneficent ; and such another as Alfred C. Post, as 
earnest and faithful and intelligent in his Christian life as 
he was ingenious and skilful and successful in surgery ; and 
such another still as perhaps the most zealous friend the 
University has ever had, Alfred Loomis — recalling only the 
names of such as these in medicine — and also that of the 
first organizer of your Law Department, the intelligent, 
scholarly, pure-minded and ingenuous Attorney - General 
Butler ; not forgetting my dear friend and former pupil 
John Norton Pomeroy, your former Professor of Law, a 
most acute as well as broad-minded critic, philosophical and 
learned far beyond his years ; recalling only the names of 
such as these, your benefactors and teachers, not to mention 
the innumerable throng of your graduates who have led 
useful and sometimes honored lives ; recalling only these, 
who will venture to charge you with a wild extravagance 
of statement, or with a childish expression of a too boastful 
spirit, if, on this historic occasion, you glorify the Univer- 
sity ! Every intelligent student of your history, no matter 
how indifferent or prejudiced he may have been heretofore, 



26 

will rise from its perusal with an assured conviction that we' 
can hardly exalt too highly the educational merit of the 
men who have rendered here such self-sacrificing service* 
We are not likely to estimate extravagantly the educational 
record that has here been made. 

And this record has been made — let us never forget 
it— this record has been made principally by teachers 
and by teaching. These unselfish men, who have con- 
tributed thus far so much to the reputation and useful- 
ness of this university, have been mostly men of scholarship 
and research indeed, but they have made themselves 
scholars and acquired knowledge not only for the sake 
of the scholarship itself, not only for the sake of the 
knowledge itself alone, but to make that knowledge and 
that culture useful to their pupils. First and last and 
best of all they have been teachers, if not teachers only. 
Evidently they have been zealous disciples of the late 
Cardinal Newman, who has been described as " the typical 
Oxford man of the century," and who believed and af- 
firmed that universities are intended not so much for 
the advancement of knowledge in general as for the 
cultivation of the mind and character of their graduates. 
These persevering teachers of yours for sixty years, 
whose memory we honor together to-day, evidently agreed 
with one of the most influential teachers of this state and 
one of our noblest men — I mean President Martin Brewer 
Anderson, of the University of Rochester- — when he said, 
" I have no time to make books ; I only teach." By which 
he meant, " I cannot give myself principally to research 
and to the increase of knowledge ; but I do give myself " — 
and that great soul did preeminently give himself — " to the 
cultivation of the mind and to the formation of the char- 
acter of my scholars." These, your teachers for sixty years, 
have written many books, they have made many additions 
to general knowledge ; but this writing of books and 
these inventions and discoveries have been incidental to 



27 

their life work. Their books have contributed to their 
own usefulness as teachers, and their discoveries and 
inventions have been made in the course of their work 
as instructors. As St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians they 
could say to their graduates : " Ye are our epistle, written 
in our hearts, known and read of all men." 

And let me say also another thing. The Regents of 
the University have not been unobservant of your history. 
They have honored perhaps more than you know, and 
they still pay deserved honor to, the authorities of this 
University, and to the instructors here employed, for your 
tenacity, for your persistence, for your unfailing courage. 
In these respects yours has been a most encouraging 
example. 

Like other similar institutions, you have had your 
trials. Sometimes your income has not been sufficient 
to meet your expenses. Sometimes sufficient subscrip- 
tions have not been made, or, after they have been made, 
they have not been paid. Increasing debts have brought 
with them increasing dissatisfaction. Professors have 
resigned, greatly to the regret of the authorities and 
friends of the University. Unreasonable educational ex- 
pectations have not been realized. Friends and patrons 
have been disappointed. Ambitious scholars have been 
sometimes dissatisfied. To a great many foolish people, 
large numbers are the decisive criterion of prosperity ; 
these large numbers have not always been enrolled here. 
In 1866 the Medical College building on fourteenth street 
was burned. For many years, the University Building 
at Washington Square has seemed to many of your wisest 
friends quite as much of a constant burden as a continual 
blessing. 

But notwithstanding all these discouraging circum- 
stances and others like them the authorities of this Uni- 
versity have never given up the ship. They could not 
willingly let this institution become extinct. They have 



28 

believed, as John Milton wrote about his books, that 
" aftertimes " would not willingly let this University 
die. They have reverently and trustfully believed that God 
has invested too much in the history of this centre of edu- 
cational influence and power to let it die. And so they 
have continually kept your canvas slanting toward the sun. 
The fidelity of your Board of Trust to its pecuniary obliga- 
tion is exemplified in the remarkable fact, attested by the 
most competent authority, that your board has not only 
preserved intact every dollar given throughout sixty years 
for the permanent endowment, general or special, of the 
University, but has increased the sum by prudent invest- 
ments. And now God is rewarding this fidelity, this faith, 
this courage. 

Permit the Regents of the University of the State to 
unite most heartily in the congratulations of the hour. 
We rejoice with you not only in the achievements of the 
past, but in the assurances of the future. To-day begins 
a new era in your history. I make no apology for the 
personality of my remarks : it is due to your present Chan- 
cellor to say that under his energetic and persevering leader- 
ship the University has been developed as never before. 
His faithful councillors have zealously supported his earnest 
efforts. The eminent ex-chancellor, whom on this occasion 
we gratefully welcome, has given his powerful influence. 
And now, as we look around us here on these Heights and 
see these evidences of the remarkable development of the 
University during the past five years, we can all unite in 
congratulating your leader, Chancellor Mac Cracken. 

Your development has been remarkable indeed. Your 
three departments of instruction have been increased to 
seven. To the colleges of arts, and medicine, and law, 
you have added a post-graduate seminary, a school of 
engineering, a school of chemistry, and a school of ped- 
agogy ; and through your alliance with the Union Theologi- 
cal Seminary your students need not be graduated without 



2 9 

a knowledge of theology. You have uplifted educational 
light-houses, not only to illuminate the city, but here, on 
this elevated plateau, to enlighten this whole island. 

I have named the remarkable growth of the past five 
years a " development," and I have used the word with a 
purpose. It has been emphatically a development. It 
seems, verily, as if this remarkable expansion had been 
foreseen and provided for by the founders. In that 
notable conference held in this city in October, 1830, a 
plan was drawn for organization upon the widest Uni- 
versity pattern. The founders defined their purpose in 
these significant words : " We would organize an institution 
of education to complete the studies commenced in the 
colleges and to diffuse knowledge." In these few words is 
described an ideal university. It has been well said that 
" this ecumenical council, in 1830, gave impulse to the 
organization of the New York University upon an ecumeni- 
cal plan." And your authorities have been wise ; they 
have been true to nature when they have been true to 
this original, fundamental idea, when they have devel- 
oped the University upon its original lines. For nothing 
can be more evident than the controlling tendency in hu- 
man life and character to perpetuate primal ideas and origi- 
nal characteristics, even to the exclusion of later influences 
and apparently more powerful tendencies. Philadelphia 
will be a Quaker city forever. Albany will be always a 
Dutch metropolis. Boston will never lose the characteristics 
of a New England town. The growth of this University 
has been thus preeminently natural — a wise development 
which assures permanency. 

And permit me to congratulate you that in this devel- 
opment of post-graduate courses you have not destroyed 
the college. You have not thrown down, contemptuously, 
the ladder that has raised you up. You have not imitated 
the supercilious example of the learned philosopher who 
loftily cast contempt upon the patient old dame who 



3Q 

taught him. the alphabet, as one entitled to no respect what- 
ever, because, forsooth, her teaching was altogether ele- 
mentary ! You have not destroyed ; you have fulfilled. 
You have brought the college out into this large place, out 
of cloistered darkness into the light and growth of this ex- 
alted position. And though the University building has 
vanished, the Founders' Memorial which has been placed 
on these heights, built out of the materials of the venerable 
building, built out of the buttresses of the old gray stone 
Gothic structure, will forever perpetuate its hallowed 
memories. You do not destroy the college ; you revive it 
here on these heights. You put new life into it. You 
preserve and increase the esprit de corps of the whole Uni- 
versity through the enthusiasm of the youngest depart- 
ment of your great institution. The youthful spirit which 
makes an institution like this a fountain of youth, so 
attractive not only to the young but to all of us, and more 
attractive the older we grow — this fountain of youth will 
still be here where all may drink of it and gain new life. 
The college will not hinder the enlargement of the Uni- 
versity. It will not interfere with the pursuit of post- 
graduate studies. It will rather lead up to them, mak- 
ing advanced studies almost indispensable, almost inevi- 
table. 

The reconstruction of the ancient mansion of this 
estate into " The Charles Butler Dormitory " is no step 
backward. For myself, as a college officer for many years, 
I believe in the dormitory method of collegiate living. In 
my judgment it is an invaluable method of education. 
Young men gathered together in a college building gain 
what Bishop Huntington has so well described in a fine 
phrase: they gain "unconscious tuition." They educate 
each other through the attrition of discussion and per- 
sonal conflict, by agreements and disagreements with each 
other, by mutual resistance and concession, through rival- 
ries and ambitions and friendships sometimes life-long. 



3i 

Believe me, there is nothing like such dormitory training 
to humble self-conceit and to encourage modest merit. I 
have been told that recently, in a neighboring State, a 
boys' school has been organized for rich men's sons only. 
The number of scholars is to be limited to seven. The 
boys are to be protected carefully from all contact with 
the vulgar and the poor ! God help the little snobs who 
will be graduated from such a school ! In a college dormi- 
tory the rich and the poor, the high and the low meet 
together and their meeting is a mutual benefit. Such a 
community, so gathered together, is indeed a pure de- 
mocracy. Let me congratulate the University on this 
prospective revival of the dormitory system. Your stu- 
dents will thus gain a collegiate residence for some years — 
a collegiate residence so invaluable in education, and so 
difficult to maintain in city life. 

I believe, most sincerely, in college secret societies, so 
called. I believe that the Greek letter fraternities are 
invaluable in the good influence exerted upon their mem- 
bers by each other, in the unselfish ambitions they en- 
courage, and in the ennobling friendships formed therein 
which last for ever. Some of the noblest members of my 
own fraternity are graduates of the University of the City 
of New York. My conviction is deliberate, founded upon 
considerable experience, that these societies largely pro- 
mote a loyal and enthusiastic interest in the college or 
university where they exist ; and that in collegiate gov- 
ernment and in university affairs they can be used legiti- 
mately to promote good order and manly ambition and 
earnest work. If I were in a university faculty I should 
be the last to vote for their exclusion. I should rather be 
the first to urge their introduction. 

But while I believe all this, and more, I seriously fear 
that the building of chapter houses, now so common in 
all our colleges, may increase those exclusive tendencies 
which are one of the evils of these societies. I fear that 



32 

these chapter houses may dwarf and narrow the life and 
character of our young - men, which would be enriched and 
broadened in the freer and larger associations of the 
dormitory. 

In the evident progress of the University it is gratify- 
ing to notice also the increasing number of recitations and 
examinations required in connection with the lectures de- 
livered. We believe that more and more valuable work 
will be done in your laboratories to increase exact knowl- 
edge. And not only this, but I believe that laboratory 
work will have the same beneficial effect upon students 
here which President Hill of the University of Rochester 
has observed in the laboratories of that institution, and 
which he has so impressively described in the following 
words : " It is easy to note an increasing intellectual seri- 
ousness among students who receive their scientific train- 
ing in the laboratory. And this intellectual seriousness 
when applied to the great sphere of conduct becomes a 
moral seriousness, whose fruits are good order and an hab- 
itual recognition of the presence and authority of law as 
inherent in the nature of things." 

The school of pedagogy will give most important 
higher training to prospective teachers. With you, the 
Regents have no fear of women in our higher schools. 
There is no real danger that the women will drive out the 
men, or that the men will drive out the women. Some of 
us do not yet quite believe absolutely in collegiate co-edu- 
cation. Yet, as your Chancellor has well said, " Who 
would refuse the admission of women to special graduate 
courses when they ask for it?" 

The progress of your " Graduate Seminary " is most 
encouraging for its systematic character and for the num- 
ber of courses offered. Ohio, methinks, has remembered 
your Chancellor, her distinguished son, in the gift of " The 
Ohio Field." In the athletic contests of your young men, 
in all the days to come, a vigorous, audible watchword will 



33 

be wanted. Why should not the name " Ohio " hereafter 
ring out upon the air ? 

And what a crown of glory is soon to be placed upon 
all this combination of educational facilities by an unknown 
benefactor in the erection of a spacious and splendid struc- 
ture where may be deposited a great library, worthy of a 
great university, and so essential to its great work ! 

In all these congratulations, Mr. President, your sister 
colleges unite. And no colleges are more cordial in their 
congratulations than those of this commonwealth and of 
this metropolis. We are all united together in one " Uni- 
versity of the State of New York." The prosperity of one 
is shared by all. This great city needs more than one 
great university. It needs and can support abundantly 
more than one such university to-day. Columbia, never so 
prosperous as now : Columbia, with her throngs of students, 
and her learned professors, and her indefatigable and accom- 
plished and munificent President : Columbia, the oldest 
college in the state, soon to be named, as she is already in 
reality, a university : I believe that Columbia, through her 
authorities, would agree with me when I say that, with all 
her facilities, she cannot alone supply even the present 
higher educational needs of this populous city. But the time 
will come when this whole island will be required for busi- 
ness purposes ; the time will come when a score of bridges 
and many tunnels will connect this island with, the opposite 
shores ; the time will come when the island and the shores 
will be crowded with millions of people ; then this, one of 
the largest cities in the world will surely need and can sus- 
tain more than one great seat of learning and education ! 

Do not accuse me of painting too fanciful a picture of 
the future vastness of this city within less than a century. 
The growth of the past one hundred years — and one hun- 
dred years is not a very long period in history — the growth 
of this city within the past one hundred years confirms my 
prophecy. 

3 



34 

In view of this natural and inevitable growth of this 
great metropolis I believe that the organic union of these 
two great institutions of learning would be an educational 
calamity ! It would be unhistorical ; it would be impracti- 
cal ; it would be undesirable ; it would be impossible ! 
Horace Bushnell would have named the attempt to enforce 
such an organic union " a crime against nature." The 
property rights, the history, the constituency, the spirit of 
the two institutions forbid it. The city and the State of 
New York will be all the richer for the perpetuation of 
these two. Each will provoke the other to zeal and good 
works. Like most proverbs, the maxim " Union is 
strength " is not always true. Many times division is 
strength. The division of labor is a characteristic of mod- 
ern civilization distinguishing it from barbarism. 

Let then the friends and benefactors of the University 
of the City of New York have no fear that they are wasting 
their zeal and their treasures in building up this beneficent 
institution. Let the merchant princes of New York make 
it their own. Send not your benefactions away from your 
home. " He that careth not for his own is worse than an 
infidel." Give to temporary objects and your gifts will be 
expended and forgotten. Give to an established institution 
and your gifts will be preserved and invested and remem- 
bered because of their continuous usefulness. 

In 1733 Bishop Berkeley, the "Minute Philosopher," 
founded a scholarship in Yale College ; and for one hun- 
dred and sixty-two years the income of that Berkeleian schol- 
arship has been regularly awarded. And the list of those 
who have received the income includes the names of some 
of the most distinguished graduates of Yale. " How far 
that little candle throws his beams !" So, identify your 
name with an established institution like this, and your 
memory will be honored, and your benefactions will be a 
continuous blessing, so long as the institution shall live. 

Please accept, Mr. President, my thanks for your cour- 



35 

teous patience in listening to my words. And permit me 
to renew to yourself and your honored colleagues, and to 
the instructors and benefactors of the University of the 
City of New York, the cordial congratulations of the Board 
of Regents, with expressions of our most sincere good 
will. 



V. Address by the Mayor of the City of New York, 

Wm. L. Strong, declaring the formal Opening 

of the Ohio Field for Athletics. 

[This Address is given from the report in the newspaper press.] 

Mr. President : 

When Chancellor MacCracken called upon me and 
asked me to come out here to-day to make a few remarks 
and dedicate the Ohio Field, I pleaded with him to allow 
me to substitute in my stead some member of the Ohio 
Society who was better acquainted with every branch of 
learning than I. But when I made this request to the 
chancellor he said, " No, no ! You must come yourself ; 
you are the Mayor of New York city, and what you lack in 
eloquence (laughter) and good words, you will make up in 
the dignity of your position." (Renewed laughter.) I can 
see around me many friends, every one of whom, if they 
would speak the truth, would say I ought never to get on 
my feet before such a distinguished audience. (Laughter.) 
But here I am, and it is my duty to dedicate the Ohio 
Field. When the chancellor first opened the subject to me, 
and asked my influence to get the Ohio Society to take 
some substantial interest in the University, he spoke with 
such eloquence and such a flow of language about the 
future beauty of the New York University that I thought 
he must surely have gone a little insane. (Laughter.) 
" There is a good man gone wrong," I said, " and the New 



36 

York University will soon want another chancellor." (Re- 
newed laughter.) 

But he soon came again, and asked me frankly what 
line of interest the Ohio Society would take in the building 
of the new home of the University. "You know," he said 
to me, " I must have the Ohio Society connected with the 
new building in some way, because I am its chancellor, and 
I am determined to have your society's name in it some 
way or other." I suggested to him buildings for several 
purposes, but none of these suited him, and he went away. 
A few days later he called upon me again, and exclaimed, 
" I 've got it. You can give a running field, and call it the 
Ohio Field." 

Well, ladies and gentlemen, there is no class of peo- 
ple in this Union that run so well as Ohio boys. (Laugh- 
ter.) Every boy belonging to the city of New York ought 
to learn how to run ; so I promised to do what I could 
for the University with the society. I may say at once 
that the idea of the chancellor captivated the members of 
the society, and from the first moment the matter was 
placed before them there was no trouble in getting the boys 
to work in aiding the scheme. (Laughter.) 

When I mentioned to the boys the other night that I 
was coming out here to help in the dedication festival, 
they asked me, ''What are you going to do? What are 
you going to say?" I replied to them, " I wont say much, 
but I will offer to run a race around the path." (Laughter.) 

One of the most distinguished of our members was 
then kind enough to remark, "Well, it wont be necessary 
for the University to send us invitations if you are going 
to run a race. We '11 all be there." (Laughter.) 

But, seriously, it has always given me a feeling of 
great pride and gratification to know that the society has 
helped in some degree toward the establishment of the 
Ohio Athletic Field. 

It is a little too hot for me to run a race on your new 



37 

path to-day, but as I have lately gained some sort of a 
reputation as an umpire I shall expect the students to rely 
upon my judgment in some of their sports in future. (Ap- 
plause.) I shall feel disappointed if they do n't ask me to 
come out here some day and umpire for them, particularly 
in the high-jump contest. In the position I occupy just 
now in the city of New York high jumping is one of the 
greatest feats on the programme. (Loud laughter.) And 
when one of the boys now at this college comes to occupy 
the position I now hold he will doubtless find that higher 
jumping will then be required more than now. (Laughter.) 

The Mayor then extended his congratulations to the 
Council and the faculty for the progress that had been 
made in the building of the new University, and, turning 
to Chancellor MacCracken, said, " I hope the University 
will so increase and prosper that before you and I shall 
pass away we shall see built on these heights one of the 
grandest of all institutions of learning." (Applause.) 

VI. Congratulatory Address on behalf of the Uni- 
versities and Colleges of the Middle States and 
Maryland, by President David J. Hill, LL. D., 
of the University of Rochester. 

Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Council : 

It was an act of generous courtesy on the part of your 
committee to include the colleges of the Middle States and 
Maryland among those to be represented at this double 
festival of past achievement and future promise. A com- 
mon interest binds the colleges together, and, although but 
loosely associated in outward organization, they are closely 
united in aim and purpose. The good of one is certain, 
through the tonic influence of example and inspiration, to 
promote the prosperity of all. Some of our colleges seem 
exhausted with the terrific strain of holding things as they 



38 

are and preventing their own expansion, but this one shows 
its vitality by outgrowing its original conception and enter- 
ing upon a new course of development. It becomes a new 
institution without ceasing to be an old one ; for that is a 
true development in which nothing excellent is lost at a 
higher which has been once possessed at a lower stage. 
True progress, whether of men or of institutions, reveals 
in the present all the gathered energies of the past, but 
raised to a higher potential. It is, therefore, an occasion of 
rejoicing and congratulation throughout this great sister- 
hood of colleges, and far beyond their borders, that you 
gather here to-day to open new halls of learning and to lay 
the corner-stone of a splendid library, another seal of con- 
tinued faith in the nobility and perpetuity of liberal studies. 

It is a notable and instructive incident that, in this me- 
tropolis, the brightest star in a great constellation of cities, 
where every human enterprise and activity that marks the 
advance of civilization is commanding the largest energies 
and resources of men, the ripe wisdom of your generous 
benefactor should choose to honor the youth of this city, 
and those who will be attracted to it, with a gift so magnifi- 
cent. The highest individual event in the life of man is 
the discovery of truth, and the highest social event is its 
communication. It is, therefore, a great moment in history 
when men come together to celebrate such an occasion 
as this. The foundation whose corner-stone is laid to-day 
rests upon a deeper one than human art can build, for it is 
sustained by the more than granite basis of ideas wrought 
in an imperishable substance by centuries of human expe- 
rience. Sir William Hamilton was right when he said, 
" There is nothing great on earth but man, and there is 
nothing great in man but mind." Upon that foundation 
this workshop of the intellect will repose. 

In the work of education, mind, with all its divine he- 
redity, is but the raw material ; for what the sculptor is to 
the block of marble the teacher is to the human soul. The 



39 

library to be erected here will be resonant with the teaching 
of those master spirits that rule us from their urns, a teacher 
of teachers through all coming time. If, as Carlyle said, 
the voice of ten silent centuries spoke in Dante, much more 
will the voices of the past break the silence of these alcoves. 
When the Romans, to honor all the gods at once, raised to 
the blue sky the great dome of the Pantheon, it was the 
idea of divinity in its completeness that sought in that firm- 
ament of marble a symbol of the boundless heavens. All 
the books that will be gathered here will have their sepa- 
rate use and value, yet each will represent but a fragment 
of the vast realm of knowledge ; but the founder of this 
library is building for learning a pantheon of the humani- 
ties where truth may shine through a whole firmament of 
unrisen stars till they lead in the morning of the perfect 
day. 

More than any other institutions, perhaps, the colleges 
of our country embody and express the high ideals of hu- 
man life. Deriving their resources from the noblest motives 
of public benefaction, they consciously recognize their obli- 
gation to elevate morality while they diffuse knowledge. 
They stand upon the highway of communication between 
the past and the future, charged with the high duty of 
transmitting undiminished the ripest experience of the 
race to those who will lead in its further development. 
Universities and colleges have about them the character of 
permanence that belongs to the intellect and the conscience, 
for they preserve and bestow that which gives dignity to 
science and meaning to history. The walled city, the ba- 
ronial castle, and the palace of royalty are only the tempo- 
rary military tents of an encamping army upon the battle- 
field of civilization, the centres of an interest already past 
in the great human march and struggle ; but the colleges, 
the universities, and the libraries are the abiding habitations 
of the human mind, the treasuries of the world's true wealth, 
the halls of victory where hang the proud banners of man's 



40 

triumph over nature, and in whose archives are deposited 
the charters of his liberty and the treaties of a federated 
world. 

In speaking thus of organized learning I do not forget 
that the better part of every man's education is that which 
he gives himself. Wherever the truth finds him, and what- 
ever the psychological atmosphere he breathes, in the ivy- 
clad quadrangles of Oxford or amid the sheepfolds among 
the lonely hills, it becomes his own only through his act of 
appropriation. But social progress seems to consist in the 
creation of the focal-points of opportunity. Thirty thousand 
students gathered from every corner of Europe to listen to 
the teachings of Abelard. Such a phenomenon indicates 
the veneration with which even a darkened age regards 
conspicuous learning, but also a condition of intellectual 
helplessness that will, perhaps, never be possible again in 
the history of the world. And yet it still remains true, 
that he who would learn the best that is known on any 
subject must go where the knowledge he seeks pervades 
the whole spirit of the place and is invested with the charm 
of a great teacher's superior mastery. Lowell once said of 
the cloisters of Oxford, that the very stones in their pave- 
ments seemed happier for being there. There is no period 
so fertile in greatness as that of discipleship to worthy mas- 
ters, and no greater misfortune than being torn from them 
to feed with immaturity the greedy Moloch of professional 
and commercial competition. If the duty of man is the 
demand of the hour, a deeper, longer, fuller draught from 
the fountains of knowledge is not a luxury but a consecra- 
tion, not a private indulgence but the recognition of a pub- 
lic need. The first necessity of progress is the complete 
appropriation of what is excellent in the past. The divine 
tuition that has reared humanity from infancy to maturity 
must be repeated in reduced outline in every generation, 
until the splendor of a complete manhood is enriched and 
made fruitful by a perfect scholarship. 



4i 

It is fitting that a time of political purification in this 
city should be an epoch also of transplanting and enlarging 
its schools of learning, for these activities are but different 
phases of one and the same movement — a movement born 
of the conviction that truth and justice are the pillars of 
municipal dignity. A shallow smartness ridicules the 
scholar in business and politics, and perhaps rightly if 
scholarship is merely technical and if personal gain is the 
chief motive of private and civic virtue ; but if success 
means the fruitful and profitable mastery of the moment, 
through a deep comprehension of its human significance, 
the educated man is the one who is demanded in every 
sphere of practical life. It has been said that one man is 
as good as another until a real man is needed. That which 
gives the real man his superiority is a character and ability 
matured by a deeper acquaintance with principles that lie 
beneath the surface. The lowest form of practice cannot 
be safely disunited from the highest truth of theory, and in 
the moment of emergency we demand for the protection of 
our property, our lives and our liberties the best service of 
a deeply disciplined intelligence. 

Who, then, can estimate the debt of the present and 
the future to those choice spirits who have given their lives 
or their fortunes to render possible this development of 
mind and character ? There is not a college in our State, 
not to mention others throughout the nation, which is not 
greatly indebted to this city for the means of its existence. 
And now you turn to kindle anew the fires of knowledge 
upon your own hearthstone, to render worthy of your re- 
sources as a city your great schools of learning. It is a 
work worthy of your deepest interest and most munificent 
bounty. The summits of your civilization are not the 
stately palisades, nor your sky-towering buildings, nor your 
proud Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World. They are 
to be found rather in the actual sources of enlightenment ; 
not in its outward symbols and monuments, but in the 



42 

schools and libraries and publication rooms of your city, 
which give stability to the liberty of knowledge by diffus- 
ing a true knowledge of liberty. And when we remember 
how these heights of opportunity have risen from the un- 
broken wilderness by the industry of hands that have 
wrought less for themselves than for the future, we seem to 
see written over all this splendid inheritance of liberty 
and knowledge, " Where much is given much will be 
required." 



VII. Congratulatory Address on behalf of the Univer- 
sities and Colleges of New England, by President 
Merrill E. Gates, LL. D., L. H. D., 

of Amherst College. 
Mr. President: 

On such a day as this, in such a scene, when a hostess 
with so fair a past thus serenely takes possession of so 
beautiful a home and looks smilingly out upon a future so 
full of fairest promise, we who are your guests feel the 
wish to bring you gifts, that you may know our friendly 
sympathy with you in your joy. If it is true that the 
noblest gift which friend can give to friend is a loving 
thought and the challenging expectation of the noblest 
deeds from that friend, we who speak for your sister col- 
leges bring to you rich gifts to-day. Our highest wish for 
you is also our confident belief, that the University of the 
City of New York will from the very first take victorious 
possession of its material equipment and natural surround- 
ings ; that the soul and spirit of the true University from 
the first may animate and give significance and eloquence 
and power to this beautiful environment of which to-day 
you are put fully in possession. 

And your past, which is secure in its ample wealth of 



43 

honorable usefulness, gives us entire confidence that the 
promise of the present will become accomplished fact as 
you live out your future on these calm Morningside 
Heights, above the roar and turmoil of the great city. 

What is the essential fact which gives to these cere- 
monies their deep significance, their supreme interest ? 

It is not the perfect loveliness of this autumnal day, 
though it shines with a richness of color and a tender part- 
ing grace that make the October of our dear home-land a 
yearly benediction in our life, like the serene presence in 
our homes of those who are full of the rich fruitage of 
happy years and wear upon their faces the splendor of the 
light from the larger life before us. Gracious as is this 
October day, it is fleeting. 

It is not the charm of this beautiful landscape. This 
same beauty blesses hundreds of homes and streets in this 
beauteous suburb of our growing metropolis. 

It is not the architecture of these stately buildings, 
noble and impressive though they are. Much less is it 
their cost. Acres of buildings, costing millions of dollars, 
rise about you in the city, and no one feels that the occu- 
pation of those costly edifices should be celebrated by im- 
posing ceremonies. 

Where intensest life in its highest forms takes hold on 
material things and uses them for its own highest ends, 
there matter and material forms acquire their supreme 
interest for man. The interest of this day centres in the 
fact that to-day these beautiful surroundings, these grounds 
and buildings, are taken possession of by life in its highest 
forms, by the eager spirit of youth and the intense ear- 
nestness of the intellectual life in pursuit of the highest 
knowledge, under the discipline of the highest ideals. 
In the aims, the ideals and the work of the University 
the essentially highest life of man is fostered and devel- 
oped. 

Where thought and study and the love of letters in the 



44 

past have touched material things there centers for men 
an intensity of interest. All life is interesting. For the 
biologist, for the true lover of life who knows the feeling, 

" And I am one with all the kinsmen things 
That e'er my Father fathered," 

even the scar on the rock, which shows where the lowest 
form of clinging life once laid hold for the support of its 
lowly-organized existence, is a sacred sign. All life is 
marvellous and interesting. Human life is especially sa- 
cred. In Literature, and in those studies that provide the 
subject-matter and perpetuate the spirit of Science, Phi- 
losophy, Religion and Literature, the essential life of man 
is fostered and developed. 

Where the "masters of those who know" — where the 
divinely gifted artists in Literature who have also been 
seers gifted with that vision without which the " people 
perish " — where the great names of Literature have asso- 
ciated themselves with a particular landscape, with an 
especial environment, how keen is the interest which 
attaches to such a place for all succeeding ages ! 

We who have seen and felt something of the wonder- 
ful power of the Hellenic spirit in the Literature and Art 
of Greece know well that we are for ever indebted to the 
poets and orators of that marvellous people for a flashing 
insight into the relations of beauty and truth to human life. 
How indissolubly Plato's thoughts and Plato's living 
ideas blend in memory with the finest aspirations and the 
noblest hours of the college course. If the highest func- 
tion of the poet is " the application of noble ideas to life," 
then poet, philosopher and artist, teacher, statesman and 
philanthropist find inspiration in those lofty ranges of 
thought applied to social life which led Emerson to say, 
'• All the Europe of to-day is to be found in the mind and 
writings of Plato." 

What a charm there is about the opening scene of 



45 

each of these Dialogues of Plato ! What Attic love of light 
and stir and beauteous form and newsy gossip and clever 
friends ! 

" Yesterday evening I returned from the army at 
Potidaea, and having been a good while away I thought 
I would go back to my old haunts. So I went to the 
Palaestra of Ta ureas," and there Socrates is saluted on all 
sides by old friends, and after giving an account of his 
escape he asks about matters at home : " about philosophy 
and about the young men, who are the promising ones ?" 
And so we are introduced to Charmides and the charming 
dialogue concerning self-control that bears his name. 

" I was going from the Academy straight to the Ly- 
ceum, intending to take the outer walk, which is close 
under the wall. When I came to the postern gate of the 
city, close by the fountain of Panops, I fell in with a com- 
pany of young men who were standing there ;" and Soc- 
rates turns aside with them to their new clnb building, 
and leads them into the talk about friendship which is 
known as the " Lysis." 

" Who was that person, Socrates, with whom you were 
talking yesterday at the Lyceum ? There was such a 
crowd around you that I could n't get within hearing ; 
but I caught sight of him over their heads, and I made 
out that he was a stranger." The stranger was Euthyde- 
mus ; and Socrates relates to Crito, the interlocutor, the 
substance of their dialogue. 

And, most charming of all, the opening scene of the 
Phaedrus, where Socrates and his companion walk out 
through the city suburbs along the banks of the Ilissus : 
" Turn this way ; let us go to the Ilissus and sit down in 
some quiet spot," says Socrates. " I am fortunate," Phae- 
drus rejoins, " in not having my sandals ; and as you never 
have any, Socrates, I think that we may go along the 
brook and cool our feet in the water ; this is the easiest 
way, and at mid-day and in the summer is far from un- 



46 

pleasant." " Lead on ; and look out for a place where we 
can sit down," says" Socrates. " Do you see that tallest 
plane-tree in the distance ?" asks Phaedrus. "Yes." "There 
are shade and gentle breezes and grass on which we may 
either sit or lie down." 

On a morning in May, after a breakfast of coffee, bread 
with fresh butter made from goat's milk, and honey of 
Hymettus, I started to walk up the half-dry bed of the 
classic stream of the Ilissus. In the summer weather only 
little mossy streamlets of water were to be seen, which 
made petty channels for themselves here and there through 
the coarse gravel of the river-bed which is washed in win- 
ter by a hurrying torrent. Knots of women in picturesque 
costume were kneeling beside little pools of water, con- 
verting the Fountain of Callirhoe into a convenience for 
accomplishing the family washing. I walked on between 
overhanging banks up the channel of the stream. On 
either side were gardens, a wealth of wild roses ; the deep 
matchless red of the pomegranate in blossom, the grape- 
vines green and fresh and fragrant ; poppies and daisies ; 
and beside the stream towering clusters of tall rushes ; 
white-breasted, black-plumed, glossy-winged swallows filled 
the air with gleaming flight and cheery twittering ; plane- 
trees, poplars, willows, fig-trees, olives, pomegranates, cacti 
and cypresses bordered the bank ; and Mount Lycabettus 
towered sharp above me, close on the left. The Lyceum, 
where Socrates loved to walk and talk, and where Aris- 
totle and his followers walked as they laid the foundation 
of the Peripatetic school, was just before me. As I walked 
on up the channel, the volume of water in the bed of the 
Ilissus was perceptibly increased by a little tributary that 
made its way in from the base of Mount Lycabettus on 
the right bank of the stream. Suddenly it occurred to 
me that this was the course Socrates and his friend had 
taken in the opening scene of the Phaedrus. I had in my 
pocket a volume of Plato (as you always do at Athens, if 



47 

you are wise), and opening it I read again that charming 
introduction of which I just now gave you Jowett's trans- 
lation. It seemed to me that I must be at the very spot 
which Plato describes, and stepping out from the channel 
of the Ilissus and into that of the little tributary that 
flowed down to meet me, and following it for a hundred 
paces, I came to a lovely bank of grass beside the stream 
beneath a cluster of trees. " There were shade and gentle 
breezes and grass on which one might sit or lie down ;" 
and as I stretched myself upon the grass and drew down 
an overhanging branch of the tree above my head, what 
was my delight to find that the tallest tree above that bank 
of grass, now as in Plato's time, was " a plane-tree over- 
shadowing a little spring " — the very place where Plato 
must have sat when he sketched the opening scene of the 
Phaedrus, in which he leads Socrates barefoot up the Ilissus 
to that grassy bank on which I was reclining. 

As we have listened to the eloquent and discriminat- 
ing historical address which has reminded us afresh how 
far-reaching is the influence of the scholarly lives which 
have been trained at this University and at this University 
have employed their matured powers in inspiring and 
training others, we feel a deep joy in the thought that to 
this University in its new and ampler equipment and sur- 
roundings is to be continued, and in still larger measure, 
the divinely-given power to become the Mother of Men. 
As you leave the old home for the new, we see reverential 
arms outstretched and sheltering hands — hands lifted in 
prayer — guarding the sacred fire as you carry it from the 
old hearthstone to the new. To give life and light is the 
mission of the higher institution of learning. Life and 
Light are themes which no environment can belittle. They 
lend dignity to the most commonplace surroundings. They 
are of divine and perennial interest and give the crowning 
touch of grace and power to an environment as beautiful 
as is this. To give more light, to awaken an intenser 



4 8 

life, to fit men not so much to transact more business 
as to give more intelligent guidance to the transaction of 
all business ! Above the stir of the city life yet within 
sound of its many voices of appeal ; removed from the 
personal stress which attends the close daily vision of the 
over-crowded tenement house, yet within call of the divinely 
compassionate spirit of the University Settlement ; through 
your professional schools retaining close touch with the 
courts and hospitals of the city yet securing for the young 
men who pursue the earlier liberalizing course of study 
ideal surroundings for the library, lecture-rooms and 
laboratories — you seem to your friends to be in an ideal 
position for university work. 

To make men see is the aim of the college and the 
university, not to fit men to get ! " Where there is no 
vision the people perish." " Does a college education 
pay ?" asks some grasping business man. We answer, Our 
business is to make the young men see that giving is better 
than getting ; that to ray out light and life is better than 
to draw in and hoard and hold gains that in their getting 
ruin others. 

The unseen, the eternal — which is the true — wherever 
college or university has its home touches the seen, the 
temporal, the fleeting, and dignifies it, giving it worth and 
beauty. 

As the light of the Eternal, who is the Father of all 
Life, falls upon our globe, enveloped as it is in the gar- 
ments of soil and vegetation and animal life and teeming 
human life with which it has closely clad itself in the 
unfolding of His plan, every trace of animal life is sacred 
because it speaks of the touch of Him who is the Author 
of physical life ; every hearthstone is sacred because the 
germs of the noblest social life are there in the love and 
self-sacrifice of the home ; every altar and church is sacred 
because it witnesses to the flame of aspiration, the hunger 
to meet with God. Every school-house, however small 



49 

and cramped in its surroundings, is a sacred spot for what 
it holds of possible inspiration and uplift, and in our own 
land for the fair flame of our country's flag, as it floats above 
it, leading us to hope that each school is a focus, a true 
fireside nursery of love of country ; and, most of all, where 
spacious and noble halls arise for the conduct of the higher 
liberalizing education, where young men are taught to 
see — are dowered with the vision which looks before and 
after, and with insight given from above sends the men 
who receive it to do the most strenuous, steadfast and high- 
hearted service for their time and their race — there the 
unseen impinges upon the seen, the eternal dignifies the 
temporal ! Men who give for such ends lend themselves 
and their substance to the highest uses, and by their gifts 
and their work are crowned with immortal fame. 

We are glad to feel that the touch of the Zeit-Geist is 
felt by our college-bred men. The charge is sometimes 
made that education at colleges and universities in the 
East (and it is sometimes said with especial emphasis that 
the training of New England colleges and of t the oldest 
Massachusetts University) results in indifference to the 
demands of the present. As far as it is proper for me, 
bringing greetings from colleges in New England, to refer 
to the oldest University of New England and of our 
country, what more emphatic refutation could be given to 
this charge of indifference than the work now doing in 
your city by one of the young alumni of Harvard ? If His 
Honor, the Mayor of New York, to whose words we have 
just listened, were asked to give voice to the judgment of 
this city upon the work and the character of the very 
efficient head of its Police Commission, I fancy that 
neither he nor the popular voice of New York would select 
the figure and the name of Theodore Roosevelt to represent 
political " indifference !" And so far as it is proper for me 
to refer to the college which I have the honor of especially 
representing, let me say, since young men of New York 

4 



5o 

are always with us in New England during the years of 
college education, that we ask you to judge the spirit of 
Amherst, in respect to feeling the debt the college and 
the university owe to the life of the present, by the spirit 
and the utterances of those sons of Amherst whose lives 
and words are so well known to the citzens of these cities 
that cluster about the mouth of the Hudson — men whom 
New Yorkers love to honor: Henry Ward Beecher, Roswell 
Dwight Hitchcock, Richard Salter Storrs, and Charles 
Henry Parkhurst ; not to mention the galaxy of brilliant 
scholars and teachers, sons of Amherst, who give prestige 
and honor to that School of Political Science which crowns 
the work of your sister university, Columbia. 

The colleges and universities of New England do not 
forget their obligations to the present ; and to our chal- 
lenge to the University of New York to vie with us by 
giving the touch of living power to the young men who 
are educated here, we know that you will answer nobly. 
For the student-life in these beautiful surroundings is to 
be lived, not in the darkness of negation, not under the 
deadly chill of avowed agnosticism. This institution was 
founded under Christian auspices and is held in loyalty to 
Jesus Christ, who is the incarnation of the Spirit of Life 
and Liberty. The formative years of college life will be 
passed here under the life-giving power of that Light ; 
under the direction of older students, men of science and 
men of letters, who are reverent children of the Light that 
illumines the life of our race wherever the Sun of Right- 
eousness has shone with life-giving power. Here is to be 
developed in young men that intensity and energy of 
high living which is possible only where men believe and 
receive the promise, " Ye shall know the truth and the 
truth shall make you free/' Here the highest studies are 
to be pursued with the most perfect freedom, but under 
the intense life-bestowing power which radiates like heat 
and light from the accepted belief that a personal God is 



5i 

at the centre of being, and that His plan is evolving be- 
fore our eyes ; that His will, written in the ordered forms 
of the material world, in the proportioned and balanced 
sequences of nature, alone makes possible Natural Science ; 
and in the belief that the Fatherly imprint of His own 
image upon us, his children, alone makes possible the 
science of thought ; while the growing recognition by all 
nations of Jesus Christ as the full measure of manhood, 
and the Divine Saviour of men from themselves and from 
the woes they have worked upon themselves, is the one 
hope of a Science of Society for the whole world, as it is 
the supreme power in that renewal of life for men and 
women, one by one, through which the better order must 
come in to bless the nations. 

It is these positive and beneficent beliefs which have 
made possible the world of science and of just goverment 
as we see it to-day. 

It is the glorious mission of our colleges and uni- 
versities to make young men see truth, and hope, where 
they have believed lies, and feared ; to send men forth 
to their life-work, radiant, joyous, strong for service ; to 
give to the young men of each generation Education for 
Power ! 

To the University of New York, on this beautiful 
bank of the Hudson, above the teeming cities at the 
Hudson's mouth, I bring friendly greeting, best wishes 
and highest hopes, from her sister colleges and universi- 
ties in New England. 

VIII. Address of William Allen Butler, LL. D.. on 

behalf of All the Alumni. 
Mr. President: 

The regretted absence of United States Commissioner 
Harris gives an opportunity for a word of congratulation 
on the part of the Alumni. 



52 

In the discharge of the grateful duty assigned me, 
representing as I do all the living lawyers, doctors, clergy- 
men and other graduates who have received their several 
degrees from our common alma mater, I feel that I stand 
on a veritable " fusion " platform, and am also upheld by 
an unassailable " harmony." 

The brief but comprehensive message to the Univer- 
sity in which all the alumni unite at this auspicious mo- 
ment is one expressive of their satisfaction and conveying 
their congratulations in view of what has been wrought 
out and is made manifest to-day as the result of the appli- 
cation to its affairs of sound common-sense, wise business 
methods, sagacious conservatism and a courageous enthu- 
siasm. Under the direction of the Council, by the special 
efforts of its more active members and its most active Pres- 
ident, and by the invincible pluck and perseverance of 
Chancellor MacCracken, the University has been brought 
to a stage in its history and a point in its progress where 
its position and its prospects are worthy of the imperial 
city whose name it bears. 

In the midst of the activities and competitions of this 
great commercial and metropolitan centre, with its cosmo- 
politan population and its ever-increasing sources of wealth 
and influence, there is ample room and verge enough for 
institutions of learning established on separate foundations 
and maintaining distinctive organizations, not in conflict 
or opposition, but moving on lines converging towards one 
common centre of the highest education and civilization. 
The University, under its broad and liberal charter, in a 
spirit of generous emulation has taken a new departure 
and enters to-day on a new epoch of its existence. 

On Washington Square the old building has disap- 
peared and, as if by the waving of an enchanter's wand, a 
new structure has risen in its place. In the realm of archi- 
tecture, as in so many other departments of modern activ- 
ity, old things have passed away and all things have become 



53 

new. When the first University building was erected, in 
the period of misapplied Gothic, the architects not only did 
not build better than they knew, but builded a great deal 
worse than they ought to have known how. The vast 
advance since that time in everything relating to the needs 
of education as well as of business, in the principles and 
methods of architecture, made necessary the replacing of 
the old building by the new, where everything is adapted 
to the wants of the University so far as its work is to be 
carried on there. Certainly, by placing the schools of Law 
and Pedagogy on the tenth floor, the instruction in those 
branches has been raised to a higher plane than has ever 
before been attained, and in every particular the best means 
have been adapted to the ends in view. The completed 
structure stands .as an index finger pointing to the path of 
progress. 

Here, at University Heights, the Department of Arts 
and Science finds itself in an ideal home. Nothing can be 
better adapted to the wants and wishes of an institution of 
learning and its Faculties than neighborhood to the chief 
city of the State and Nation, coupled with a seclusion as 
remote from its whirl and bustle as were the groves of the 
Academy, where Plato taught, from the gates of Athens. 
The buildings, present and prospective, will furnish every 
facility for the uses to which they are devoted. 

Our campus is not an extorted concession to athletics, 
but a wise provision for physical training, and will give 
ample room for games as varied and exciting as those 
which Achilles instituted for the Greeks before the walls 
of Troy. Mayor Strong has already vindicated the fitness 
of its designation as the " Ohio Field." He has improved 
on the statesmanship which hails from New York while 
representing Ohio, by hailing from Ohio and representing 
New York. The Harlem, which at the foot of these 
Heights winds its way from one great river to another, 
has not yet the classic associations of the Cam or the Isis, 



54 

but who shall limit its future possibilities, flowing, as it 
will, in propinquity to two great institutions of learning on 
either side of its banks ? 

The motto of the University, engraved on its seal and 
printed on to-day's programme, is " Perstando et Praestando 
Utilitati." 

A distinguished alumnus of a sister college lately called 
my attention to the fact that the grammatical accuracy of 
this motto was questioned. Deeming discretion the better 
part of valor on my part in respect to such a challenge, I 
referred the subject to the Dean of our Faculty of Arts and 
Science, Rev. Dr. Baird, who is with us to-day, and whom, 
on behalf of the Alumni and, I am sure, with the concur- 
rence of all his associate professors, I take leave in this 
presence to congratulate on the recent completion of his 
great work, the " History of the Huguenots ;" a work to 
which, without trenching on the duties of his Chair, he has 
given thirty years of labor, and which will make his name 
illustrious in the annals of literature. He will now have 
leisure to defend the Latinity of our motto, the free transla- 
tion of which may meanwhile be given in plain English : 
" For utility by perseverance and preeminence " — the high- 
est usefulness by means of the most thorough and far- 
reaching efforts. This is the aim and object of the Univer- 
sity in the sphere of the higher and highest education, the 
crown of all civic, municipal and national strength and vir- 
tue. If, as Von Moltke said in the German Reichstag, it 
was the Prussian schoolmaster who won the victory at Sa- 
dowa, we may hope, under the inspiration and impulse of 
free American ideas and untrammelled Christian truth, to 
share in new and more enduring conquests on these broad 
fields of human endeavor where " peace hath her victories 
no less renowned than war." 



- 55 



IX. Announcement by the Chancellor of the University, 
Henry Mitchell MacCracken, D. D., LL. D. 

Mr. President, Fellow-Members of the Council and of the 
Faculties, and Fellow-Citizens: 

University Heights, which we christen to-day, is almost 
five years old. The Vice-Chancellor's report of November, 
1890, declared that our work for undergraduates might cer- 
tainly be enlarged and improved if grounds of some extent 
within easy distance of the chief residence quarter of our 
city were placed at our command ; that in a short time 
University College, with attractive grounds in a residence 
quarter, would fulfil more nearly the American ideal of a 
college than a college in a business locality ever could. 
This suggestion, which involved also the proposal for a 
great building at Washington Square, was well received by 
the Council, especially by the newer members and by the 
President, Mr. Charles Butler. A small committee was 
organized, consisting of George Munro, David Banks and 
William F. Havemeyer, besides the president and vice- 
chancellor, ex-officio. All of these gentlemen are still active 
except Mr. Munro, who was obliged to retire through the 
death of a brother placing upon him multiplied responsi- 
bility.* 

In May, 1891, they had contracted for this noble piece 
of ground, as the most commanding site for a University 
within the limits of our great metropolis. After the pur- 
chase of the ground the committee was increased by the 
addition of Dr. Alfred L. Loomis and Charles T. Barney, 
the former, alas ! ending his services all too soon. He was 
foremost in that ungrateful work of soliciting gifts, secur- 
ing the larger part of the moneys for the building of yon 

* Mr. Munro has since accepted the unanimous invitation of the University 
Council at the Annual Meeting, November, 1895, to resume his place in the Cor- 
poration. 

LtffC. 



.56 

Hall of Languages. In Alfred Loomis' death there fell a 
prince and great man in our Israel. The first pledge that 
was made to University Heights, and the largest gift until 
the present year, was the Laboratory of Chemistry by Mr, 
Havemeyer. More recent members of the committee are 
Oliver H. Payne, Charles R. Flint and Dr. John P. Munn. 

Not less essential than the work for the establish- 
ment of University Heights was that performed by our 
Building Committee at Washington Square. The highest 
interests of the University as well as its ancient motto 
require us to hold strongly our possession there while we 
establish ourselves here. The building of the massive 
pile on that venerable ground, giving us spacious halls 
of law and pedagogy while at the same time fruitful of 
income, is mainly due to Augustus D. Juilliard and William 
S. Opdyke, with their associates upon the Building Com- 
mittee. The labors of that committee have, I think, been 
no less arduous than those of the uptown committee. 

Thus much of the past. The promise of the future we 
owe largely to the interest in the University Heights move- 
ment awakened in the mind of a friend of the University 
not present to-day, and to the equal interest of another 
friend of the University whom I see before me. I trust 
that some day I may be permitted to announce these 
names, as well as that of the munificent friend of our Med- 
ical College. A seal is upon my lips to-day. 

As the spokesman of the faculties of the six University 
schools I feel that we as teachers are, after all, ultimately 
the persons in trust for the entire investment which our 
friends are making in the New York University. I point 
you to the promise that is made by more than sixty years of 
patient, enthusiastic and self-denying labor by our profes- 
sors ; no words of mine can utter a promise so large or sure. 

This is a day of formal opening. But it is also the 
day of real opening of a great and effectual door of useful- 
ness to the strong men of New York. Through this open 



door we look out westward over the continent. Not two 
months since some of the wealth that flows into New York 
was put into my hands, in all more than $60,000, for the 
founding- of scholarships especially for students from a 
distance, a certain number of the students to come from 
west of the Mississippi. Within thirty days forty candi- 
dates from west of the Mississippi had made application. 
To-day five students selected by competition, three for the 
Undergraduate College and two for the School of Peda- 
gogy, are either here or upon their way from Missouri, 
Arkansas and Texas, to study at the New York University. 
Thus this foundation is not for New York city alone. Were 
Manhattan Island only in question I should count to-day 
almost superfluous ; but New York is the platform from 
which to speak to America and to almost one hundred mil- 
lions of souls. This platform is large enough to permit a 
dozen denominations to speak from this metropolitan cen- 
tre without clashing one with the others, scores of jour- 
nals to speak simultaneously every day and almost every 
hour. The platform is large enough also, we think, to let 
New York University have a wide front -place upon it 
from which to utter what she has to say. 

The special gift of this occasion is by a citizen whose 
name is withheld, but who has studied our situation care- 
fully and has decided that our next need is a dormitory. 
The Committee, having a hint of this, decorated the part 
of our grounds which had been designated on our map for 
the first dormitory ; but the giver believes that a hall for 
students should have a spacious lawn and be a little way 
from the site of the recitation rooms and the laboratories 
where the students work all day. In accord with this view 
a written pledge has been given me promising the gift of 
an addition to our campus on the east side of Andrews 
Avenue, and of a dormitory hall for at least seventy-five 
students. This hall will thus be near the sites of several 
fraternity houses and will front toward the athletic field, 



58 

the lawn tennis courts, the gymnasium and the Founders 
Memorial. 

By request of the founder of the library, the Chancellor 
will proceed to break ground for that edifice. It promises 
to be a memorial worthy every way of its giver, its posi- 
tion, its purpose and its architect. I recite the words which 
I shall repeat upon breaking the sod : " We begin this 
library to the glory of God, trusting that, as to-day we have 
marked its site by flags of all nations, so they shall bring 
the glory and the honor of the nations into it ; and that the 
prophet's further word shall also be true, that ' there shall 
enter into it nothing that defileth or worketh abomina- 
tion ;' and may the blessing of Almighty God, the Father, 
Son and the Holy Ghost, rest upon this work." 

Chancellor MacCracken then led the way to the arch 
on the site of the Library building and performed the 
ceremony of breaking the ground for the building, turning 
up some earth with a gilded spade. 

The ceremonies were ended by the Rev. Dr. George 
Alexander, who pronounced the benediction. 



Appendix L 



"University Heights." 

Extract from the Annual Catalogue ot the University. 

In November of 1890 a movement was inaugurated to 
enlarge the work of the University by the securing of a 
new site for the University College, the School of Engi- 
neering, and the Graduate Seminary (in part). On July 1, 
1 89 1, a site was secured, extending from Sedgwick Avenue 
to Aqueduct Avenue, immediately south of the new Uni- 
versity Avenue (placed on map of the city at the request 
of the University), which avenue is also called East 181st 
Street. The single tract included in the College Campus 
comprises over twenty-two acres. In addition to this is the 
boathouse site on the water front. 

Further, the University has purchased several adjoin- 
ing parcels in order to restrict the neighborhood against 
nuisances, and to secure sites for Fraternity Houses, pro- 
fessors' residences and the like. The general verdict of 
the public who visit University Heights places it second to 
no other University situation in the world. 

The following are the names of the subscribers for 
the new grounds and buildings here, who may be fairly 
designated " Founders of University Heights." Since a 
portion of the purchase price remains to be paid, it is 
expected to add other names to this roll. The individual 
amounts credited range from $100 upward. The benefac- 
tors marked (*) have died. 



Founders of University Heights. 



'5 1 Jay Gould, (*) 

Miss Helen Miller Gould, 

John Hall, D. D. 
William F. Havemeyer, 



Austin Abbott, LL. D. , 
George Alexander, D. D. 
William L. Andrews, 
J. D. Archbold, 
W. W. Atterbury, D. D. , 
Joseph S. Auerbach, A. M., '75 C. N. Hoagland, M. D. 

G. H. Houghton, D. D. 



'52 C. P. Huntington, 

John H. Inman, 
Samuel Inslee, (*) 



Frederic Baker, A. M. , 

Mrs. Frederic Baker, 

David Banks, 

Charles T. Barney, 

W. H. Beadleston, M. S.,(*)'62 John B. Ireland, A. M. 



Edward C. Bodman, 
Benjamin W. Bond, A. M., 
Robert Bonner, 
James Boyd, 

Charles B. Brush, Sc. D. , 
E. M. Bulkley, 
Charles Butler, LL. D. , 
Wm. Allen Butler, LL. D. 

Hugh N. Camp, (*) 

John Claflin, 

R. R. Crosby, A. M., (*) 

R. G. Dun, 

J. P. Duncan, 

S. B. Duryea, A. M., (*) 



Isaac S. Isaacs, A. M. 
'62 W. B. Isham, 

D. B. Ivison, 
'82 
'67 D. Willis James, 

Morris K. Jesup, 

A. D. Juilliard, 



43 



34 



'66 



Charles R. Flint, 

A. A. Freeman, D. D., 



42 



7 4i 
'65 



John S. Kennedy, 
"A. B. K.", 

J. W. C. Leveridge, 

Ed. H. Litchfield, A. M., 

Solomon Loeb, 

Morris Loeb, Ph. D., 

Alfred L. Loomis, M. D. , (*) 



•67 



David H. MacAlpin, 
43 Henry M. MacCracken, LL. D. 
J. M'Creery, 
F. W. Geissenhaimer, A. M.,'41 Robert Maclay, 
Wm. K. Gillett, A. M., '80 John MacVey, D. D., '60 



6i 



H. W. T. Mali, '64 

Fraxcis F. Marbury, (*) 
Elbert B. Monroe, (*) '53 

Mrs. Elbert B. Monroe, 
J. Pierpoxt Morgan, 
John H. Moss, A. M., '48 

John P. Munn, M. D., 
George Munro, 

William H. Nichols, A. M.,'70 
H. D. Xoyes. M. D., '51 

William S. Opdyke, A. M., '56 
Louis Ottmann, 

Francis A. Palmer, 

Oliyer H. Payne, 

John E. Parsons, A. M., '48 

Israel C. Pierson, Ph. D. , '6^ 

W. M. Polk, M. D., 

George B. Post, A. M. , '58 



Robert Schell, 

Jacob H. Schiff, 

Hermann Schwab, 

Max Henry Seligman, '75 

Elliott F. Shepard, (*) 

Mrs. Elliott F. Shepard, 

Lemuel Skidmore, A. M. , '61 

William L. Skidmore, 

Samuel Sloan, 

John Sloane, 

Charles H. Snow, C. E. , '86 

Joseph Stickxey, 

James Stokes, A. M., '63 

Thomas Stokes, Ph. B. , '65 

William L. Strong, 

William R. Syme, A. M. , '62 

James Talcott, 
Wm. M. Taylor, D. D.,(*) 
Roderick Terry, D. D. , 
Charles L. Tiffany, 



John Reid, D. D., 
JohnM. Reid, D. D., 
W. J. Roome, 
Frank Russak, 
Jacob Russak, 

Samuel S. Sands, (*) 

F. L. Satterlee, M. D. 



'70 Henry Van Schaick, A. M., 43 

'39 Jenkins Van Schaick, 

'75 Mrs. Mary B. Wheeler, 

'81 Wm. A. Wheelock, A. M., '43 

Staxford White, A. M., 

'46 G. G. Williams. 

'65 Henry S. Wilsox. 



62 



"THE COLLEGE CLOSE." 




This Map of " The College Close," which forms the eastern 

side of University Heights, shows the position of 

the Residence Hall, the gift of which was 

announced october 19, 1895. 



^3 




yNEW YORK V/1IVER5ITY RESIDENCE HALL 
V^IVERSITY HEIGHTS. 



This first Residence Hall will be builded after the above design 
(Messrs. McKim, Mead & White, Architects), in time for the open- 
ing of the sixty fifth college year, September, 1896. The Hall is 
designed for 112 students and contains in its four stories, 48 studies, 
each with an open fireplace ; 64 bedrooms accommodating 112 bed- 
steads ; eight bathrooms ; 128 clothes-closets; besides halls, stair- 
ways and special entries to the studies. In the basement (which is 
largely above ground upon the east side) will be a Music Room, 
two Bicycle Rooms, two College Periodical Rooms, and other 
attractive appointments. 



- 6 4 



The University Building upon Washington Square. 

The picture fronting this page presents a view of the new University 
Building at Washington Square as seen from the north side of the Square. 
The basements with the seven stories are leased for twenty-five years to the 
American Book Company, who also furnish heating, lighting and elevator 
service to the upper floors. All of the four upper floors, namely, the 8th, 
9th, 10th and nth, it is hoped, may finally be utilized for University and 
educational work. Our immediate needs require the entire 10th story, 
except the Administrative Offices, for the School of Law, including the in- 
struction in law for non-matriculants, especially women of property or busi- 
ness, carried on under the auspices of the Legal Education Society. The 
Law School alone enrolls at this time between five hundred and six hundred 
students, while the classes of non-matriculants will add about one hundred 
more. 

The Chancellor's Office, which is also the Council Room, is upon the 
southwest corner of the 10th story, immediately over the place which this 
office occupied for more than sixty years in the old building. The entire 
9th story could be at once utilized, if the University finances permitted, 
for the work of the School of Pedagogy and the Graduate School. A large 
proportion of the graduate courses in philosophy and comparative religion, 
history and political science, Oriental languages and the like, are given at 
Washington Square for the convenience of graduate students who, many of 
them, are members of theological schools or teachers in New York or 
Brooklyn or the neighboring cities of New Jersey. When better facilities of 
rapid transit are provided all this graduate work may possibly be removed 
to University Heights. A certain amount, however, of popular educational 
work of the University extension order should always be carried on in the 
upper stories of the Washington Square Building. The glass structure 
which constitutes part of the nth story is planned for a conversation and 
general reading room for students of law. Near it is the " Research Room " 
of the Dean of the Law School. The view from the spacious roof is very 
extensive, commanding a fine prospect over the city and westward across 
the Hudson to the mountains of New Jersey. 




f._S3 MM 



u 

O 

Z 



Q 






r 

z 

u 
w 

u 
z 



© 
o 



O 

LU 
— ) 

O 

u 

>- 

t co 

£ g 

> Q 



O - 



O 



O 




Q 
Z 

< 

CO 

£ H 



H 

CO 
UJ 

> 
z 



H 

CO 

> 



ID 



rr 

o g 

^ zz 

a QQ 
z 

:d z 

O O 

c£ r; 

O < 

O ^2 
z 

a § 

^ < 
< 

UJ 

en 



to 

X 

UJ 

<++ 

o 

£ 
B 

o 

a. 



CD cei- 



>, 






q 

d 
d 









> 

CD 
CD 






cd 
a. 






00 
CD 

bx) 

bo 





>- 


X3 




W 


• ^— « 




S 


CO 

CD 


r~ 


UJ 




b 


> 


£ 


O 


< 




U 


X 





CD 



bj) 



tu 



J 7=: 

<+r CO 

c 

, — cu 



E .2 c 



CD kJ 



00 

o a 

- r- 5 

a s 

o >^ 

U -° 

CD C. 



00 

C 



2 5 

v- bJD 
o c 

o 



o 

ya 



o 

7"5 



CD 



rt 



CD 
00 
CD 



a 

a 

CD 



CD 



: 

00 
>^ 

CD 

CD 



^- E 

o n 



-J 



> 




C^ 






UJ 


s 




-J 
H 


>, 




CO 


yo 




oo 


^ 


CD 


w 


>, 


CD 


-J 




-4— » 


rv^ 



< 

X 

U 

OO 
00 
CD 
J— i 

< 

G 



00 

CD r-' 

^ .2 

'•+J 

CD C5 
r- J^ 

^ o 
a. 

O O 

U 

CD 

O CD 

X £ 

rt +-» 

Cm <+- 
CD O 

u 

< 






c 


00 


>- 


CD 


£ 


> 

r- 1 


CD 


ZJ 


' ! | 


CD 


o 


r-< 




-<—• 


CD 




-<♦— » 


'-4— 




c 


OO 


V-; 


CD 


» j 


r-; 


r~" 


-t-> 


CD 




JD 






o 






r^ 


o 


c 


r - " 




CD 


^-s 


> 




O 


__J 










IZ 


z 




>— s 


w? 




'— 


00 



> 



D 



o 

oo 



JH 


< 




X5 






>.>; 


'— 




u- 


o 




O 






i— 1 


"a3 




5 


o 




X 


r— ' 




CD 


r* 




r-; 


u 




-+- » 






>> 

X5 


X5 


oo 
-*— » 

CD 


00 
00 


00 
00 


^ 


CD 


CD 


CD 


:— 


J— 


oi 


TD 


TD 




TJ 


*"0 




< 


< 





u 

33 



o 




2: 









Qd 




H 




</) 




-j 






CO 







S 


'+J 


z 


x: 




+- » 


^ 


< 


^ 




v- 


u- 








>- 


■Ci 




2 


£ 







X 


V- 


.2 


O 


IE 


>> 


O 


■+-» 


CU 





*c 




+-» 


<v 


<-t— 


x: 





-+-> 


hn 


v- 







. »— . 




c 


5— 1 


CD 


O 


p 


73 





S 


"73 


<V 


E 

5— 


g r 





-+-> 


U- 


j-t 


cD 





i r- | 


c 


+^ 







X 


br. 

.E 


CO 


'd 






X 






(L) 


>, 


T3 


rQ 




CO 




CO 




<d 




1— 




T> 




'O 




< 





CO 

bo 



O 

<-> ri 



</> d 

CD ~ 
'co 

J— 

> 



X> 



a 

> 

< 



CU 

'Lo 

CD 



.2 
*u 

o 

CO 
CO 

CD ^f 

o C? 



73 

CD 
X> 



T3 

73 
co 03 

CO ■+-» 
CD (/} 

O 

+-. <D 

03 x: 



73 o 

b£ 



V- 

CD 

CO 
CD 
SI 
u 
O 

oi 



Cu 

>, o 



lo 

CD 
> 

"c 

x: 



uO 




CD 




bJ3 




JD 




—_ ! 


CD 


O 


bJD 


u 


jD 


r T3 


O 

u 


73 


+-» 




CO 


CO 


i— 
D 


•4—* 


f— 


"lo 


c 


CD 


< 


> 


Vt— . 



= o 



D 



Q 



o 
U 






-J 




-j 


(— 




.2 


</f 


%— * 


au 


.2 


H 


"G 



< 


CO 




CO 
< 


X 


CD 


-J 


i r 




+^ 


c£ 




Qd 


s— < 


DQ 


O 


S 


V— 




' ' 


1— 


73 


c 


,<—; 


CD 


<D 


*T3 


^ 






'cO 


r^ 


CD 




U- 


O 


C- 


CO 


>, 


CO 
CD 


Xi 


5— 


^ 


T3 


T3 


T3 


C 


< 


C3 




biD 


>. 


cz 


O 


UJ 


J2 


^ 


Zj 


CD 


73 


^ 


bo 


O 


c 









U 









V. 

O J 

< < 

5 « 

►J J 

M • 

I< 

> X 



C/3 
> 

3 





ei 




b 




M 


2 « 


^H 












£ 


2 ~ c/3 




2 - 3 


rS 


<_, <ii 


a 


> 2 ., 


<! 


^ 2 g 


£ 


E<S 


OJ 






J i. 


ii 







2' a 




~ ^ 


w 


s< 





C/] 






V 










r^ 




CD 




c^ 










^O 




pC 




+-* 










-*-> 




■+- > 




O 










73 

+- » 

.£2 




o 




co 
O 








d 


"S 




J— 


J* 

O 
>- 

CD 
O 


o 

r 
CO 


O 

cd 

<—• 

"So 

CO 






of 

-1 
H 
D 


£ 
< 

73 


d 
-J 


-4— » 

"S 




£ 
E 


d 






5— 
73 


< 


CD 


•4— > 


cd 


o 


-j 




UJ 


J2 


o£ 


^ 





"o 
U 


U 

_cd 


5 




i-j 
< 


113 

CD 


< 


d 
-J 


CD 


t/T 


J2 


aL 




• 


_d 


s 


~j 


*H— < 


.i? 


73 


< 


U 


S 


t— ' 






o 


Vi — > 
'on 

> 

'E 


O 

O 
CD 




d 

o 


£ 

>> 

Xi 






c/T 

< 


^co 
O. 


D 

CD 

r-; 

-+- > 




.2 


-4— > 

be 

CO 
73 


r— 

E 

—< 

< 


O 

u 

o 


O 


DC 

u 


4-J 

f— 

73 


o 


73*" 


+2 

73 


£ 


CD 


bp 


CD 
U 

73 


O 


CO 

o 


73 

"cd 


CD 

E 




O 


„ 


15 

73 


u 


CQ 
< 


E 


X5 
r-; 

o 

CO 
CO 


< 

CO 
CD 


c ■ 




<4— 

c 

<+- 

73 


CD 

u. 
CO 

CD 

r— 

H 


CD 

=- 

■4— » 
>> 


> 

CD 
0^ 


CD 

<— ; 

U 


CD 


73 

■+- » 






CD 


T7J 


bfl 


CD 


r- 


X!- 








r^ 


i— " 


r— ' 


r— ■ 


u 


< 


r- ; 






5 

CO 
CO 


73 
CO 

C 


2 




CD 

^— » 

7^ 


O 

73 


D 






CD 
V- 


CD 

£ 


OQ 


r^ 


'be 


73 








< 


CD 

c 




.2 


U 


bJD 










o 




^5 

CD 




r^ 










r- 1 




r^ 




5 










E 




CD 




U 










< 




OQ 








I« 



' 3 



WVr' 



LIBRARY OF CONCRESS 







028 334 295 5 



